Note on U.S. Covert Action Programs

In compliance with the Foreign Relations of the United States statute
to include in the Foreign Relations series comprehensive documentation
on major foreign policy decisions and actions, the editors have sought
to present essential documents regarding major covert actions and intelligence activities. The following note will provide readers with some
organizational context on how covert actions and special intelligence
operations in support of U.S. foreign policy were planned and approved within the U.S. Government. It describes, on the basis of previously-declassified documents, the changing and developing procedures during the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson
Presidencies.

Management of Covert Actions in the Truman Presidency

The Truman administration's concern over Soviet "psychological
warfare" prompted the new National Security Council to authorize, in
NSC 4-A of December 1947, the launching of peacetime covert action
operations. NSC 4-A made the Director of Central Intelligence responsible for psychological warfare, establishing at the same time the principle that covert action was an exclusively Executive Branch function.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) certainly was a natural choice
but it was assigned this function at least in part because the Agency
controlled unvouchered funds, by which operations could be funded
with minimal risk of exposure in Washington.1

ClA's early use of its new covert action mandate dissatisfied officials at the Departments of State and Defense. The Department of State,
believing this role too important to be left to the CIA alone and concerned that the military might create a new rival covert action office in
the Pentagon, pressed to reopen the issue of where responsibility for
covert action activities should reside. Consequently, on June 18, 1948,
a new NSC directive, NSC 10/2, superseded NSC 4-A.

NSC 10/2 directed CIA to conduct "covert" rather than merely
"psychological" operations, defining them as all activities "which are
conducted or sponsored by this Government against hostile foreign
states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but
which are so planned and executed that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility
for them."

The type of clandestine activities enumerated under the new directive included: "propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground
resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberations [sic] groups,
and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened
countries of the free world. Such operations should not include armed
conflict by recognized military forces, espionage, counter-espionage,
and cover and deception for military operations."2

The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), newly established in the
CIA on September 1, 1948, in accordance with NSC 10/2, assumed responsibility for organizing and managing covert actions. OPC, which
was to take its guidance from the Department of State in peacetime
and from the military in wartime, initially had direct access to the State
Department and to the military without having to proceed through
ClA's administrative hierarchy, provided the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was informed of all important projects and decisions.3 In
1950 this arrangement was modified to ensure that policy guidance
came to OPC through the DCI.

During the Korean conflict the OPC grew quickly. Wartime commitments and other missions soon made covert action the most expensive and bureaucratically prominent of ClA's activities. Concerned
about this situation, DCI Walter Bedell Smith in early 1951 asked the
NSC for enhanced policy guidance and a ruling on the proper "scope
and magnitude" of CIA operations. The White House responded with
two initiatives. In April 1951 President Truman created the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) under the NSC to coordinate government-wide psychological warfare strategy. NSC 10/5, issued in October 1951,
reaffirmed the covert action mandate given in NSC 10/2 and expanded
ClA's authority over guerrilla warfare.4 The PSB was soon abolished
by the incoming Eisenhower administration, but the expansion of ClA's
covert action writ in NSC 10/5 helped ensure that covert action would
remain a major function of the Agency.

As the Truman administration ended, CIA was near the peak of
its independence and authority in the field of covert action. Although CIA continued to seek and receive advice on specific projects from the
NSC, the PSB, and the departmental representatives originally delegated to advise OPC, no group or officer outside of the DCI and the
President himself had authority to order, approve, manage, or curtail
operations.

NSC 5422 Special Group; 5412/2 Special Group; 303 Committee

The Eisenhower administration began narrowing ClA's latitude in
1954. In accordance with a series of National Security Council directives, the responsibility of the Director of Central Intelligence for the
conduct of covert operations was further clarified. President Eisenhower approved NSC 5412 on March 15, 1954, reaffirming the Central
Intelligence Agency's responsibility for conducting covert actions
abroad. A definition of covert actions was set forth; the DCI was made
responsible for coordinating with designated representatives of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense to ensure that covert operations were planned and conducted in a manner consistent with U.S.
foreign and military policies; and the Operations Coordinating Board
was designated the normal channel for coordinating support for covert
operations among State, Defense, and CIA. Representatives of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the President were to be
advised in advance of major covert action programs initiated by the
CIA under this policy and were to give policy approval for such programs and secure coordination of support among the Departments of
State and Defense and the CIA.5

A year later, on March 12, 1955, NSC 5412/1 was issued, identical
to NSC 5412 except for designating the Planning Coordination Group
as the body responsible for coordinating covert operations. NSC 5412/2
of December 28, 1955, assigned to representatives (of the rank of assistant secretary) of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and
the President responsibility for coordinating covert actions. By the end
of the Eisenhower administration, this group, which became known as
the "NSC 5412/2 Special Group" or simply "Special Group," emerged
as the executive body to review and approve covert action programs
initiated by the CIA.6 The membership of the Special Group varied depending upon the situation faced. Meetings were infrequent until 1959 when weekly meetings began to be held. Neither the CIA nor the
Special Group adopted fixed criteria for bringing projects before the
group; initiative remained with the CIA, as members representing other
agencies frequently were unable to judge the feasibility of particular
projects.7

After the Bay of Pigs failure in April 1961, General Maxwell Taylor reviewed U.S. paramilitary capabilities at President Kennedy's request and submitted a report in June which recommended strengthening high-level direction of covert operations. As a result of the Taylor
Report, the Special Group, chaired by the President's Special Assistant
for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy, and including Deputy
Under Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, Director of Central Intelligence Alien Dulles,
and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer,
assumed greater responsibility for planning and reviewing covert operations. Until 1963 the DCI determined whether a ClA-originated
project was submitted to the Special Group. In 1963 the Special Group
developed general but informal criteria, including risk, possibility of
success, potential for exposure, political sensitivity, and cost (a threshold of $25,000 was adopted by the CIA), for determining whether covert
action projects were submitted to the Special Group.8

From November 1961 to October 1962 a Special Group (Augmented), whose membership was the same as the Special Group plus
Attorney General Robert Kennedy and General Taylor (as Chairman),
exercised responsibility for Operation Mongoose, a major covert action
program aimed at overthrowing the Castro regime in Cuba. When President Kennedy authorized the program in November, he designated
Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale, Assistant for Special Operations to the Secretary of Defense, to act as chief of operations, and Lansdale coordinated the Mongoose activities among the CIA and the Departments of State and Defense. CIA units in Washington and Miami
had primary responsibility for implementing Mongoose operations,
which included military, sabotage, and political propaganda programs.9

President Kennedy also established a Special Group (Counter-Insurgency) on January 18, 1962, when he signed NSAM No. 124. The Special Group (Cl), set up to coordinate counter-insurgency activities
separate from the mechanism for implementing NSC 5412/2, was to
confine itself to establishing broad policies aimed at preventing and resisting subversive insurgency and other forms of indirect aggression
in friendly countries. In early 1966, in NSAM No. 341, President Johnson assigned responsibility for the direction and coordination of
counter-insurgency activities overseas to the Secretary of State, who
established a Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG) to assist in discharging these responsibilities.10

NSAM No. 303, June 2, 1964, from Bundy to the Secretaries of State
and Defense and the DCI, changed the name of "Special Group 5412"
to "303 Committee" but did not alter its composition, functions, or responsibility. Bundy was the chairman of the 303 Committee. 11

The Special Group and the 303 Committee approved 163 covert
actions during the Kennedy administration and 142 during the Johnson administration through February 1967. The 1976 Final Report of
the Church Committee, however, estimated that of the several thousand projects undertaken by the CIA since 1961, only 14 percent were
considered on a case-by-case basis by the 303 Committee and its predecessors (and successors). Those not reviewed by the 303 Committee
were low-risk and low-cost operations. The Final Report also cited a
February 1967 CIA memorandum that included a description of the
mode of policy arbitration of decisions on covert actions within the 303
Committee system. CIA presentations were questioned, amended, and
even on occasion denied, despite protests from the DCI. Department
of State objections modified or nullified proposed operations, and the
303 Committee sometimes decided that some agency other than CIA
should undertake an operation or that CIA actions requested by Ambassadors on the scene should be rejected.12

5 William M. Leary, editor, The Central Intelligence Agency: History and Documents (The University of Alabama Press, 1984), p. 63; the text of NSC 5412 is scheduled for
publication in Foreign Relations, 1950-1960, Development of the Intelligence Community.

6 Leary, The Central Intelligence Agency: History and Documents, pp. 63, 147-148; Final Report of the Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, Book I, Foreign and Military Intelligence (1976), pp. 50-51. The texts of NSC 5412/1 and NSC 5412/2 are scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1950-1960, Development of the Intelligence Community.